How to Ethically Steal Your Competitors’ Backlinks: Top 4 Strategies

If you’re a blog owner, you already know that content is king. But what good is all that great content if no one ever sees it? That’s where link building comes in. Link building is the process of acquiring links from other websites to direct traffic to your own. And it’s essential for growing your blog.

There are a few reasons for this.

• Links from high-quality websites boost your blog’s search engine rankings. This means more people will likely see your content when searching for relevant topics online.

• Links help increase your blog’s reach by giving people more ways to find it.

• Links build relationships with other bloggers and web admins in your industry, which can lead to new opportunities down the road.

If you’re not already building links for your blog, now is the time to start. It could be the key to taking your blog to the next level.

Many small business owners think the only way to succeed is by outdoing their competitors. While this may be true, there are other ways to grow by stealing your competitors’ backlinks. When we say “steal,” we don’t mean in a literal thieving manner. We mean it ethically — “if it works for them, it can work for me.”

This blog post will discuss four strategies you can use to find competitor backlinks and steal them ethically.

We will also provide all the information you need to know about backlinks, why you should “steal” them from your competitors, the best software tools to use, how to find and track your competitor’s backlinks, and, of course, the top four strategies to steal your competitor’s backlinks ethically.

So let’s get started!

What Are Backlinks?

A backlink is a link that points from one website to another. In other words, if Website A has a backlink to Website B, it means that Website A is linking to Website B.

Backlinks are vital because they help search engines like Google understand the popularity and authority of a website. In other words, backlinks can help improve your website’s search engine ranking.

Look at your competitor’s website and see who is linking to them. You can usually find this information in their website’s footer or code. Once you have a list of potential websites, reach out to them and ask if they would also be interested in linking to your website.

They may be more likely to agree if you have something valuable to offer them (such as content or products).

Keep an eye on your competitor’s backlink profile so you can quickly identify any new links they acquire. This way, you can reach out to those websites and try to get a backlink.

Why Should You (Ethically) Steal Competitor’s Backlinks?

There are a few reasons why you might want to steal your competitor’s backlinks.

• If your competitors have high-quality backlinks, they’re likely getting traffic from those links. And if they’re getting traffic from those links, there’s an opportunity for you to get traffic from them.

• If your competitors have high-quality backlinks, their websites will likely rank higher in search results. So if you can get those same backlinks, you may be able to improve your own search engine ranking.

• By stealing your competitors’ backlinks, you can help improve the overall quality of your website’s backlink profile. This is because the more high-quality backlinks you have, the more authoritative your website will appear to search engines.

• Citations like these help you get authoritative web links, which you can use on your website or in emails to prove that the work is reputable. Plus, they build industry authority and give a good name for services explicitly related to this field of business.

• The quality of your backlink profile can impact how high you rank in search engines. A higher-ranked site has more visibility and credibility, which is essential for prospects who might want to check out what links there are at that point.

• You can increase visibility in all the right places by leveraging common areas. Your competitors are getting their views and customers, so you might as well be too. Look for opportunities to be seen on platforms that will help drive new visitors towards what matters most: your products or service offerings.

What Are the Best Tools To Have?

Since all articles are based on keywords, SEO software is the best tool to use for finding your competitor’s backlinks. There are many different SEO tools available today to find and track your competitors’ backlinks, but some of the more popular and effective ones are:

• Linkody: This tool allows you to input every competitor you can find and analyze not only the backlinks, but overall site metrics that are fully integrated with other tools such as Moz and Ahrefs. Compare the competitor’s backlinks numbers, quality, and value with your site and see where you fall behind.

• Moz’s Link Explorer: If you’re serious about SEO, you need to use Moz’s Link Explorer. This powerful tool allows you to track your competitors’ backlinks, giving valuable insights into their link-building strategies. Not only that, but Link Explorer also provides detailed information about each link, including its strength and authority. This can help you to prioritize your link-building efforts and focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks.

• Majestic’s Site Explorer: Majestic’s Site Explorer is a powerful tool that can help you find and track your competitors’ backlinks. With Site Explorer, you can see which websites link to your competitors and how much link juice they’re passing. You can also use Majestic to monitor your competitors’ link-building progress over time and adjust your strategy accordingly.

• Ahrefs’ Site Explorer: Ahrefs’ Site Explorer is a handy tool to help you find and track your competitor’s backlink. You can see all their backlinks by entering your competitor’s URL into the site explorer. This can be helpful in two ways. First, it can help you identify which sites link to your competitors. It can give you an idea of where to focus your link-building efforts. Second, it can help track your competitors’ link-building progress over time. If you notice that they are gaining new backlinks from high-quality sites, you can adjust your own strategy accordingly.

How to Find Your Competitors

If you don’t already know who your competitors are, there are a few ways to find them.

If you’re looking to give your website a little boost, one method you might consider is ethically stealing your competitors’ backlinks. But before you can do that, you need to identify who your competitors are. The best way to do this is through keyword research, and thankfully there are tons of AI SEO keyword research tools to help you get the job done.

Look at who ranks on Page 1 of Google for the keywords you’re targeting – those are the websites you want to take a closer look at. However, don’t discount anyone ranking above you in the search engine results pages (SERPs), even if you’re on Page 1 and they’re on Page 3. Just because they’re not in the top spot doesn’t mean they don’t have valuable backlinks you can learn from.

Once you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to start snooping around and see what kind of backlinks they have. With a little bit of effort, you should be able to find some quality backlinks you can add to your own website. Just make sure you’re not breaking any ethical guidelines in the process.

Once you have a list of competitors, you can start tracking their backlinks.

How to Track Your Competitor’s Backlinks

There are a few different ways to track your competitors’ backlinks.

One way is to use a tool like Linkody, Moz’s Link Explorer, Ahrefs, Monitor Backlinks, or Majestic’s Site Explorer. Just enter your competitor’s website into the device, showing you which websites link to them.

On Linkody, you can enter the domain of the site or page you want to see the backlinks for and then click on the “Add Domain” button. This will show you all of the pages that link to that page, as well as additional metrics.

Another way to track competitors’ backlinks is to use a Google search operator. Just enter the following into Google: link: competitorswebsite.com.

Replace “competitorswebsite.com” with your competitor’s website address.

This will show you all the websites linking to your competitor’s website.

The Top Four Strategies To Ethically Steal Your Competitor’s Backlinks

Strategy 1: Utilize the Same Backlinks As Your Competition

The first strategy for ethically stealing your competitor’s backlinks is using the same links. Here are the ways to find out what backlinks they got so you can copy their process.

Use a Software Tool and Ask For a Link or Do a Link Exchange

One way to ethically steal your competitors’ backlinks is to use the same backlinks they’re using.

You can use a software tool like Linkody, Ahrefs, Moz’s Link Explorer, or Majestic’s Site Explorer to find the websites your competitor used for a link and email them to see about adding your link to their website. Just enter your competitor’s website, and it will show you all the websites linking to them.

Once you find the websites they used, you can ask for a link exchange with them.

Your competitor already has an excellent backlink from a robust and relevant page, so there’s a good chance you can get the same backlink if you meet the web admin’s interests, provide value, and fit well with the rest of their content.

For example, if your competitor got listed on an industry resource page or expert roundup, you could try to get listed on the same page. This would add more value to that website’s content.

You must ensure that you’re providing different value than your competitor and following the guidelines set out by the website’s administrator. But getting the same backlink as your competitor is a real possibility if you do.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a great way to build quality links, and it’s easy for you because your competitors are probably doing this too. You’ll want to quickly find which websites your competition is using and ask them if you can write a guest blog for their site. Most websites will allow you to at least link to your site with a link in the guest author’s bio, and some will even let you link to your blogs within the blog’s text.

Here are three ways to find the same backlinks that your competition used to get guest posts using Ahrefs:

1. Google Advanced Search Queries: You should start on Google as most searches do. Find your competitor’s guest posts using this effective formula: “Author name” + “Guest post” -site.competitordomain.com -site:https://twitter.com. For example, “John Smith” + “Guest post” -site.competitordomain.com -site:https://twitter.com Or you can try “author name” + inurl:”author” (“John Smith” + inurl:”author”).

2. Reverse Image Search: If you have the author’s image, you can use Google’s Reverse Image Search program to find the author. Right-click on the image and select “Search Google for the image.”

3. Ahref’s Content Explorer: This is a simple option. Type in “author: author name” (e.g. author: John Smith). All of the articles written by that author will show up. You can see exactly which guest posts they have written and for whom. You can then email the same websites and ask to write guest posts for them.

Once you have found the posts and websites your competitors have written guest posts for, you’ll want to get as many links as possible connected to your site. Put your best foot forward by using these tried and tested link-building templates.

Start From the Top of Google and Work Down

Usually, when it comes to poaching your competitor’s links, the best place to start is from the top. By that, we mean the high-traffic pages driving the most referral traffic and links to their site.

Chances are, your competition did this same thing: Googled keywords in their industry and asked the top-ranking pages if they could exchange links or write guest posts.

The top pages are likely the most successful and popular ones on their website, so replicating their strategy can give you an advantage.

But don’t just copy their content once you find it. Try to improve on it by adding your insights and perspectives. This will help you stand out from the crowd and make it more likely that people will want to link to your page instead of theirs.

Then, work down their website, analyzing other high-traffic pages and replicating their strategies. And finally, focus on the low-traffic pages that could use some attention.

Following these processes can gradually build up your link profile while ethically stealing your competitor’s backlinks.

Strategy 2: Get a Backlink From a Different Page

It can be tough to get a leg up when you’re vying for the same backlinks as your competition. However, targeting different pages on the same site may have better success.

For example, if your competitor has a link from an article about the best SEO tools available, you can reach out to the site and see if they have a more relevant article to link to your website. You can use this same strategy for other types of content as well. With some luck, you can snag a backlink from a high-quality website.

Getting a backlink from a different page on the same website as your competition can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. They might tell you they already have an article about your niche or subject.

However, if you research the site and find a more relevant article, you may have a better chance of getting a backlink from that page. Then, you must follow the same outreach process as in strategy 1. There are plenty of outreach email templates out there you can use on the internet, and with some luck, you can get a valuable backlink for your site.

Strategy 3: Find a Backlink That Your Competition Doesn’t Have

Another way to ethically steal your competitors’ backlinks is to find a backlink they don’t have.

But first, you need to know what backlinks your competition has so you can get backlinks that they don’t have.

To find your competition’s backlinks, you can use one of the link building software tools mentioned above. Just enter your competitor’s website into the tool, and it will show you all the websites linking to them.

Once you have a list of websites linking to your competitor, you can try to find other websites in the same niche that aren’t linking to your competitor. Some software programs also have a “content gap” application that will tell you what holes the website has with their content that you should write about.

Another way to find a backlink your competitor doesn’t have is to get creative with your content.

For example, you could author a guest post on the website or be the protagonist of an interview-based post.

When pitching web admins for guest posts and interviews, clearly spell out the value you add to their website. Ask yourself what you can bring to their website and audience that no one else has. Sometimes offering a different point of view article or one written about the same topic from a different perspective will work.

You must stand out with all the spam requests flooding their inboxes daily. Standing out is vital when trying to get links from websites with a lot of content. If you can provide value that others can’t, you’ll likely get a link from them.

Strategy 4: Search For an Editorial Backlink

One final way to ethically steal your competitors’ backlinks is to search for an editorial backlink.

An editorial backlink is a backlink from a website that isn’t trying to sell anything. Instead, these websites are usually news, blog, or other websites that allow users to submit articles.

To find these websites, search for your industry + “submit article” or your industry + “write for us.”

For example, if you own a pet store, you could search for “pet stores submit article” or “pet stores write for us.” This will show you a list of pet stores looking for informative articles, which will contain your links.

The best way to get an editorial backlink is to create high-quality content that is valuable and interesting to the website owner. You can tell them about a tremendous resource you have, but make sure to leave any decisions about linking to them. In fact, you shouldn’t even mention a backlink.

The best resources to promote include whitepapers, e-books, infographics, or some unique research or data you obtained. Web admins are likelier to link to original, in-depth, up-to-date content.

Wrap Up

The internet is an ever-changing space. Websites are being created faster than search engines can rank them. That means website owners need to manufacture content or hire marketers if they want their site to appear in Google’s premier results pages for keywords related directly to what their business offers. 

Your outreach message should resonate with these people because there isn’t enough time left where all this new information comes from. You need to stress that you are providing them with free information that their website needs to rank higher on Google search pages in exchange for a link. You (and them) need collaboration more than ever when businesses have been drowning under too much competition.

Getting backlinks is essential to growing and monetizing your website, and one of the ways to do that is to “steal” your competitor’s backlinks.

However, there are many ways to steal your competitor’s backlinks ethically. Using the strategies outlined here, you can get an edge over your competitors and improve your website’s ranking on search engine results pages.

Do you have any other ethical link-building/stealing strategies? Please share them with us in the comments below.

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